Week ??

Ok, I'm quite unsure what week I'm on in the garden and in this blog about the garden.  Here's where things currently stand...

Here's a picture of the garden.  It's lush and green.  The light green plants in the foreground are broccolli.  Behind them you can see cucumbers, squash, peppers, tomatoes, etc.  I have to get some fall crops in this week...there are open spaces in the garden...just gotta do it!

Here's the herb garden...left to right, Thai hot peppers, chives, dill, cilantro, basil.  The herb garden was a huge success, and I am really happy that I dug out the nasty shrubs that were in there.   I'm drying basil and mint leaves, and harvesting dry dill seeds and coriander (cilantro seed).

Angel found seeds for these amazing burgundy/black sunflowers a couple months back.  We planted them in the house's side flowerbed.  They grew a little over chest-high, and opened up to reveal these gorgeous flowers.  I've never seen sunflowers quite like them.

Rain, hot sauce, yellow watermelon, and super sweets.

This was one morning's harvest from a couple days ago...maybe 45 minutes of picking!  We then went on a two-day weekend trip to a family reunion.  It rained hard while we were gone, and a bunch of the ripe tomatoes cracked or burst open.  We got home this afternoon, and while there was still plenty of good stuff to pick, it was sad tossing the fruit that had gone bad.  I did keep a bunch of the "lightly split" tomatoes and made a quick hot sauce this evening.  I even bottled it...

You don't have to say it.  I already know how classy I am.  On a very cool note, yellow watermelons are in.

The flesh is sweet and juicy, right down to the rind.  That sounds a little dirty to me.  This evening it was super hot.  I sat down to take a break and felt the sweat rolling down my skin.  Heck, I could see it!  I'm growing these cherry tomatoes called "Super Sweet."  They are perfect little spheres that get deep red when ripe.  Tonight, every third one had just split from the rain.  At first I tossed them in the compost pile...if they are spilt, they quickly go bad.  But I tasted one.  It was the sweetest tomato I'd ever put in my mouth.  (I think that could be taken the wrong way too.  Oh well.)  So I ate as I picked.  They were fantastic over-ripe.

Vegetable Insanity

The garden is insatiable.  It needs constant picking and tending.  I'm barely keeping up with its production.

This is what I harvested yesterday.  Huge zucchini, yellow squash, yellow & green cukes, eggplant, tomatoes.

Here is what I harvested today.  Turnips, jalepenos, Kung Pao, and Hot Thai peppers in addition to the rest.

The Hot Thai Red Peppers are coming in.  The harvest will be huge and fierce.  None will be spared.

Chemicals

We haven't picked anything from the garden since Monday morning.  Why?  We sprayed Sevin, a fairly mild pesticide, and you really shouldn't harvest for three days from when you apply it.  Last year I used a little Sevin powder, but that was it.  This is the first time we've actually sprayed the stuff.  The squash were covered with bugs, the sunflowers seeds were being eaten by worms, and strange orange and black bugs are all over the broccolli.  I'm not apologetic about our use of modern chemistry to ensure a good crop.  The garden is work, and I'm not going to just roll over and let insects enjoy the bounty we've created.   

I fertilize.  Yes, I also compost and till manure into my soil, but plants need food, and fertilizer is cheap, easy to use, and safe.  I hand-broadcast this 10-10-10 maybe every 3 weeks or so on most everything except the tomatoes.  This is a 10+ year old bag of fertilizer that Mr. C left in the Batcave for me.  It's ammoniated, a high ammonia content can prevent fruit set in tomato plants.

This is what I use for the tomatoes.  I prefer using water from our rain barrel and mixing up the Miracle-Gro by the spoonful in the watering can.  It has a very low ammonia content.  I'm a fan of Miracle-Gro...the regular formula is what I used exclusively on the garden as fertilizer last year.  This year the free 10-10-10 is working just fine, so that's just one less cost.

I have a lot of respect for organic farmers and organic gardening.  That's serious work, and you've gotta really know your stuff to be successful.  I really don't know my stuff, and it's not massively important to me to reach that level of greenness.  I feel good enough about having a garden.  I know I've gone a little earth-love hippie with the composting and collecting rainwater in a barrel.  Chemical use moves me a little back to the center.